Chapter 9 #2
“I’m not Torres,” She said in a seething tone. “I’m not your partner, and I don’t have to agree to a deal if I choose not to.”
“Be reasonable,” Rone groaned.
She crossed her arms and stood next to him. “I’m the one with the evidence; I decide the deal.”
He huffed, scrubbed his hands down his face, and leaned back in the helm chair. “Do you want me to lie to you and tell you that we can waltz onto that island, rescue your father, and then make it out alive? I thought you wanted honesty, not fantasy.”
“I want a chance.”
“Fine. A chance I can give you. Take the helm.”
“Really?” Her pulse thundered.
“I’ll try to save your father, because you’re right. Torres…” His gaze fell to the floor, and the mighty man in front of her visibly crumbled. “I can’t bring her back, but I might be able to help save your father and Echo.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, warmth filling her body.
“On one condition.”
Isobel stiffened. “What’s that?”
“I’ll do this only if you agree to leave.”
“I knew I couldn’t trust you. No. I’m not leaving.” Isobel stood her ground.
“Then no deal.”
She walked away, knowing she wouldn’t change his mind, and she needed some air to cool down.
Maybe she was naive, but she needed a solid plan.
There had to be a way to save her father and Echo.
She wouldn’t hand him over to the monsters who’d refused to help when he’d asked for a relocation.
No, they’d forced him back into the middle of all this.
They wouldn’t suddenly decide to help now.
Hours passed while she sat out under the shade of the pilot house until the sun passed over into late afternoon and flooded her solace. She rose and went inside to Rone, still manning the helm, although on autopilot.
They traveled in silence, switching shifts at the helm.
When Isobel wasn’t sleeping, she would hold the rabbit in her hands and wish for her father’s voice to blare over the radio again, but they’d have to turn on something to hear anything outside the boat.
Not even GPS or AIS was on in fear they’d be found.
When no better plan materialized, she knew she had to take Rone’s offer, or at least see it through in case another option presented itself. “Fine, make your call. If you get a deal to extract my father and Echo, I’ll consider leaving.”
He didn’t respond; he scooted from his position and slid his cell from his pocket.
She stepped up to take the helm. “You sure you can trust Blake?”
“We’re brothers.” Rone dialed, and a moment later, he said, “Blake, it’s Archer.”
Isobel glanced over at him, trying to read the other side of the conversation. Rone put it on speaker.
“Situation changed,” Rone said. His tone had gone clipped, all business. “We had to move. Need rendezvous location.”
“Copy. We have a team organizing now. Rendezvous at Coya Costa Island.”
That couldn’t be coincidence.
“North sector. Old ranger station.” Blake’s words confirmed what she’d already suspected. The FBI betrayed them. Rone’s own so-called brother betrayed them. They’d given up her father. And now they’d turn them over to be silenced.
No. It couldn’t be true. His buddy, his brother, betrayed him. He couldn’t allow himself time to process because if this was a trap, they didn’t know where they were right now, which meant they had a chance. Rone cleared his throat. “We’ll be there.”
“Understood,” Blake replied, though there was something in his voice—too smooth, too ready. “We can stage there. Can you be there tomorrow evening?”
“Yes. We’ll come in quiet.” Rone hesitated, eyes narrowing.
“Good. And Rone… don’t call local law. Not even marine patrol.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll either warn Laurel Tide or show up dead.”
“Understood. Ranger station, no locals. We’ll be there.”
The line went dead before Rone could answer. The soft click echoed louder than the waves slapping the hull. He stared at the phone in his hand—his brother’s voice still echoing in his head—and felt something crack open inside him that he’d spent years sealing shut.
Blake. His brother in every way that mattered. The one man he’d trusted to cover his six when the world went to hell.
He set the phone down, slow and careful, as if gentleness could undo the betrayal pulsing through his veins. It didn’t. The anger came anyway—dark and quiet, like a rip current you couldn’t see until it dragged you under.
“You were right,” he said, his voice low enough that it scraped his throat.
Isobel’s hand froze on the helm.
He stared out across the gulf where the moonlight cut thin silver lines on the waves. “They can’t be trusted.”
She nodded, telling him she’d already put that much together, but she didn’t say I told you so. Didn’t gloat. She just went still beside him, shoulders trembling once before she pulled herself together. “Then what do we do?”
He didn’t have an answer. For a man who’d built his life on having them—on plans, exits, contingencies—the hollow in his chest felt like failure.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. The words burned on his tongue. “But we stay alive long enough to figure it out.”
Silence swallowed them—vast and unnerving. Only the creak of the trawler and the rhythmic slap of water against the hull broke the stillness. “We don’t have extra fuel to burn.”
The world turned to shadow. The horizon vanished, and the sea stretched in every direction, a black mirror that seemed to absorb the last of the light. Above them, a sliver of moon hung crooked and dim, its reflection shivering across the water like a broken promise.
They kept heading north.
He told himself it was tactical—to let the heat die down, to avoid detection—but the truth was, he didn’t have another plan. The fuel gauge dipped closer to empty. He needed the hum of the sea and the bite of salt air to keep from shattering under the weight of everything he couldn’t fix.
“We left so fast we couldn’t fill up.” He pounded the dash. “Those blasted tanks could’ve gotten us 3,000 miles.”
When he finally turned, Isobel sat on the couch, her knees drawn up, arms wrapped tight.
She looked small there in the dark, her hair catching stray threads of moonlight.
He left them on autopilot with no ships in sight and sat beside her, not touching but close enough that he could feel the warmth coming off her in waves.
“Should eat something,” he said, though his own stomach felt like it was cinched with wire.
She gave a soft, humorless laugh. “Not really hungry for rations.”
He huffed a sound that might’ve been a laugh if his heart hadn’t been so heavy. “Fair.”
Silence lingered, soft but weighted. The sea rocked them like an old cradle—slow, steady, relentless.
Rone flicked on the radio. “See if there’s any chatter on the VHF.”
Music broke through, a holiday tune that made the darkness fade to gray.
“You know,” she said quietly, “I used to love Christmas. My dad and I would chop down a tree from the woods behind our cabin. He’d make cocoa so thick it was practically syrup, and we’d sit by the fire stringing popcorn and cranberries until our fingers hurt.”
He listened, the ache in her voice cutting deeper than the cold wind.
“Every year,” she went on, eyes lost somewhere in the dark, “we’d exchange one present on Christmas Eve. Had to be handmade. He once whittled me a reindeer out of driftwood.” Her mouth lifted slightly. “Still have it.”
He swallowed hard, feeling that old emptiness stir in his chest—the one that never quite went away. “That sounds… incredible.”
She looked over at him, her expression soft, open. “What about you?”
He let out a long breath. “No traditions. My parents didn’t do holidays. Didn’t do much of anything together, actually. I think they forgot I was there most of the time.” His voice roughened, old memories surfacing like wreckage. “My dad used to say I was an accident that never got cleaned up.”
Isobel reached out and rested her hand on his arm. The touch was barely there, but it undid him anyway.
“Then they missed out, because I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who’s fought harder for people who didn’t deserve it.”
He turned his head, their faces inches apart. The sea rocked beneath them, slow and hypnotic. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.”
Her certainty landed like warmth in a place that had been cold too long. He wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe her.
He reached for her hand, his fingers brushing hers. “Then next Christmas,” he said, voice low, raw, “you’ll be back at that lake house with your dad. I’ll make sure of it.”
Her lips curved. “Only if you promise to spend it with us.”
Something inside him loosened. “Deal.”
For a moment, it was easy to imagine it—snow on the windowsills, laughter, a fire crackling somewhere safe and far away from all this.
Then the boat shifted, a small, subtle motion that didn’t fit the rhythm of the sea. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
Rone turned his head toward the dark horizon.
Far off, barely visible against the strip of moonlight on the water, a single green navigation light blinked. Once. Twice.
Then went dark.